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Answerman - Why Do American Companies Bother To Release Filler Episodes?


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ninjamitsuki



Joined: 15 Sep 2007
Posts: 589
Location: Anywhere (Thanks, technology)
PostPosted: Fri May 06, 2016 2:32 pm Reply with quote
I'm just mad that Naruto Shippuden and One Piece pretty much have a permanant spot on Toonami when there's precious little slots as there is.
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Wyvern



Joined: 01 Sep 2004
Posts: 1544
PostPosted: Fri May 06, 2016 2:34 pm Reply with quote
D00dleB0Y wrote:
How does this explain 4Kids Dub of One Piece? They not only cut all the filler arcs, but they also cut out actual manga arcs like Reverse Mountain and Little Garden.

What you said clearly doesn't apply to 4Kids as they had total control and were doing whatever they wanted with the show.


True, but 4Kids was an industry giant at the time (having the rights to Yugioh and Pokemon at the heights of their popularity) and things like streaming and Adult Swim did not exist. I'm willing to bet the industry standards were very different.

And like was said, the broadcaster has a lot more clout than the licenser. I could see Fox Kids (which aired the original One Piece dub) objecting to a lot of the violence on that show, and telling Toei "let 4Kids make all the cuts they want or we won't air this." There's no reason for Adult Swim to ask for content edits like that.

Besides, 4Kids was editing content, removing blood, turning guns into hammers, and other silliness. That's different from FUNimation just telling Toei, "Hey, we're going to remove a bunch episode's from One Piece's Toonami broadcast because we think they suck." That's a good way to wreck a business relationship.
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vanfanel



Joined: 26 Dec 2008
Posts: 1239
PostPosted: Fri May 06, 2016 2:41 pm Reply with quote
By all means, make everything available for those who want it, but multiple versions (edited and uncut) have been released for many shows in the past. So how about a secondary "general audiences" (heh, heh, heh) version of some Jump shows that have "material offensive to American sensibilities" removed.

And then quietly define "offensive" as "worthless filler crap" and Kai the living daylights out of it until it's a lean, properly-paced show that matches the manga.

I know, I know...only in my dreams.
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Raoku



Joined: 10 Jan 2013
Posts: 18
PostPosted: Fri May 06, 2016 3:14 pm Reply with quote
Wow what a bunch of entitled people complaining about dubbed filler episodes, no one needs to actually dub the shows at all, the companies that license them could just release them subbed only and here we got people complaining that about a minor inconvenience like it's a big deal (if you can't tell I hear this way too much and just felt I needed to get out my thoughts on the matter.) you should be happy there even is a dub of the show you watch and quit complaining.

Last edited by Raoku on Fri May 06, 2016 3:47 pm; edited 2 times in total
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Touma



Joined: 29 Aug 2007
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Location: Colorado, USA
PostPosted: Fri May 06, 2016 3:17 pm Reply with quote
Considering the amount of indignation and outrage I often see over a bit of editing I am really surprised that so many people are in favor of having the US companies omit entire episodes.

I would like to be the one who decides whether or not I watch each episode.
There have been a lot of filler episodes that I have enjoyed.

I can always choose to skip an episode that is released, but I cannot choose to watch an episode that is not released.

You also have to consider that any ending that is made for the anime would, by the definition being used here, be filler.
Should all anime-original endings be omitted from the releases here?
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7jaws7



Joined: 17 Aug 2013
Posts: 704
Location: New York State
PostPosted: Fri May 06, 2016 4:07 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
Obviously, filler episodes aren't ideal. If there's too many "filler" episodes of dubious quality, those hurt the value of the property in the long run.


Sadly, Rurouni Kenshin was the biggest casualty.

I have never completed (nor am I currently watching) an anime television series 100 episodes or longer, and filler is the biggest reason why. Looks like the manga/novels are the only way to go for me, unless someone can give me an adapted series of the aforementioned length that has little to no filler.
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JDude042



Joined: 29 Dec 2011
Posts: 261
PostPosted: Fri May 06, 2016 4:30 pm Reply with quote
I sent in a similar question a while back and it never got answered, so I'm glad to finally see that a similar question to mine got posted. I'm not a fan of filler in long-running anime for the most part, and generally tend to avoid it like the plague. I remember there being "a lot" of filler episodes in Inuyasha, and it probably being the main reason it got cut short and cancelled before finally having the rest adapted somewhat faithfully as Inuyasha the Final Act several years later. I could definitely tell a noticeable drop in quality whenever the anime went into filler material, and it got unbearable at times.

I find it interesting that while Naruto for whatever reason seems to revel in filler material (I remember complaints about a years worth of filler or longer years ago, on top of the recent long running batch of filler that seemed to be stuck in an incredibly inconvenient spot from what I've heard), another long running juggernaut and one of the my favorites, One Piece which has/had some mild filler episodes and even arcs, Toei Animation has made it apparent they want to avoid catching up to the manga and having filler episodes/arcs as much as possible. This has been apparent for quite some time now considering they have foregone endings on each episode, stretched out the openings to about 3-4 minutes, and every episode has a mini-recap of the previous episode, thus the actual episode may only be around 12-15 minutes.

Then you have Bleach which had to suffer through a lot of filler arcs/episodes from what I've heard, some stuck in at inconvenient spots from what I recall that would otherwise make no sense being there according to the actual plot line. Could filler have been what caused the death of the Bleach anime, or was there just an overall decline in interest in the series as a whole in Japan, and that's what caused the Bleach anime to be cut short, or were they just done at that point because the anime would have gotten caught up with the manga by that point? I know the anime ended after the Fullbringer Arc ended and before the Quincy War arc.

I also find it amusing that generally filler episodes are clearly poorly budgeted as far as art & animation goes and are usually of poor-average quality from what I've noticed. Good on Fairy Tail at the very least for taking breaks periodically, so it doesn't have to be ridden with filler material.
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Apollo-kun



Joined: 11 Feb 2010
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Location: City 7, Macross 7
PostPosted: Fri May 06, 2016 4:33 pm Reply with quote
Omitting a staff's hard work because you don't like something is probably one of the most disrespectful and asinine things I've ever heard of. If you don't like filler, skip it. It's as simple as that. But cutting into the pay of a studio and just not releasing something because some people don't like it... That is such a privileged mindset.

When "Bleach" randomly stopped after that fight with Grimmjow, then went straight into that 13ish episode filler arc, I didn't wish they hadn't released it. I just skipped it, then kept watching it when it got back to the main plot.

It's as easy as a mouse click/not buying a set of DVDs.
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Apollo-kun



Joined: 11 Feb 2010
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Location: City 7, Macross 7
PostPosted: Fri May 06, 2016 4:35 pm Reply with quote
Touma wrote:
Considering the amount of indignation and outrage I often see over a bit of editing I am really surprised that so many people are in favor of having the US companies omit entire episodes.
Right? People get outraged over "CENSORSHIIIIP" like a costume change, but cutting whole episodes of a show because I don't like them? Yeah, A+ idea, do it! It's so silly.
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BadNewsBlues



Joined: 21 Sep 2014
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PostPosted: Fri May 06, 2016 4:37 pm Reply with quote
meiam wrote:
I remember even as a kid I could tell something was weird about the dragon ball episode where Gohan was "training" in the forest or Goku was running on the path in the afterlife. I didn't even know the show was an adaptation but it was pretty clear the quality was way down. So it really killed my interest in the series because it just felt like the show quality was tanking and there's no way to really know if it'll go back up if you don't know what filler are.


That's interesting since not only is Z's filler nowhere near as bad as the fanbase loves to insist it is. But it actually improves upon the manga by both exploring the lives/backgrounds of other characters and even the world itself which was easily the reason why I really couldn't get into the manga once I was able to read it.

It also doesn't effectively rewrite the source material by awkwardly forcing in material that wasn't in the source material which is easily the problem with Naruto's fillers.
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Tylerr



Joined: 13 Nov 2010
Posts: 475
PostPosted: Fri May 06, 2016 4:45 pm Reply with quote
BadNewsBlues wrote:
That's interesting since not only is Z's filler nowhere near as bad as the fanbase loves to insist it is.


DBZ Fillers (and the later episodes of one piece) are the worst kind of fillers.

They're the fillers you can't skip because they are ingrained in the very episode.

They may not have gone off and created new story, but they filled the time by padding episodes with long camera pans and silences (and reaction shots too) where nothing is really happening.

BadNewsBlues wrote:

It also doesn't effectively rewrite the source material by awkwardly forcing in material that wasn't in the source material which is easily the problem with Naruto's fillers.


Filler is not a problem when you can just completely ignore entire seasons. That's the proper way to do it.
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BadNewsBlues



Joined: 21 Sep 2014
Posts: 5886
PostPosted: Fri May 06, 2016 5:00 pm Reply with quote
Tylerr wrote:

DBZ Fillers (and the later episodes of one piece) are the worst kind of fillers.

They're the fillers you can't skip because they are ingrained in the very episode.

They may not have gone off and created new story, but they filled the time by padding episodes with long camera pans and silences (and reaction shots too) where nothing is really happening.


The episodic filler was what I was touching upon the time filler that's whole other thing though which is still definitely not as bad as some of the stuff I've seen in shows like Kaiji or Akagi.

BadNewsBlues wrote:


Filler is not a problem when you can just completely ignore entire seasons. That's the proper way to do it.


Not back in the day when illegal fansubs on PC's weren't really a thing and when most of these series were finished or had a substantial number of episodes produced and aired in Japan prior to them being licensed and aired on local TV.

Nor today where this stuff is streamed and you're never fully aware of how much stuff is going to be craptastic filler or to the extent it'll follow the source material without having to go in it's own direction.
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Stuart Smith



Joined: 13 Jan 2013
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PostPosted: Fri May 06, 2016 5:09 pm Reply with quote
This seems like a really selfish question. The only way it could be more selfish is if the question was "Why do companies license shows I personally don't like when they can be releasing shows I do like?"

Filler has always been a complaint I never got, and this is coming from someone who's favorite series is Detective Conan. Sure, half the time filler is, well, filler, and pointless, but that doesn't make it not enjoyable. There can be good filler. Conan has had a lot of filler, not even counting the movies and tie-in episodes which are technically filler, and there's formulation hit-or-miss ones (Conan, Ran, and Kogoro go somewhere random and a murder happens), but there's also more entertaining ones like the case where Conan has to solve the crime during a trail rather than at the crime scene, the one where Ran has to solve a case on her own without Conan's help, or the case where Sonoko plays up her Deduction Queen persona, of the case Kogoro gets framed.

Then there's all the episodes that werent in the manga but introduce things that become canon later on. A ton of main Detective Conan characters were created by the anime staff and later adopted by Aoyama into the manga, and there's filler episodes which are the first appearance of certain manga characters that differ from the manga so you can't skip those. Not choosing to release anime-original episodes can lead to a lot of inconsistencies and plot-holes for viewers who rely on DVD/BD releases.

-Stuart Smith
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doubleO7



Joined: 17 Jul 2009
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PostPosted: Fri May 06, 2016 5:10 pm Reply with quote
7jaws7 wrote:
Quote:
Obviously, filler episodes aren't ideal. If there's too many "filler" episodes of dubious quality, those hurt the value of the property in the long run.


Sadly, Rurouni Kenshin was the biggest casualty.

I have never completed (nor am I currently watching) an anime television series 100 episodes or longer, and filler is the biggest reason why. Looks like the manga/novels are the only way to go for me, unless someone can give me an adapted series of the aforementioned length that has little to no filler.


Well, off the top of my head...

I believe the entirety of Hunter x Hunter (2011) was canon (all 148 eps), unless you want two count the two recap episodes that featured anime-original framing stories.

Yu Yu Hakusho had only 4 or 5 out of it's 112 eps.

Hitman Reborn had 26 out of it's 203.

I haven't kept up with Gintama, but I believe there are barely 30 (if that) throughout it's entire run of 316.

And I'm gonna be that guy and point out that if we're talking percentages, One Piece, despite it's enormous length, actually has comparatively few filler episodes (~90-ish out of 740) for an SJ long-runner. Instead, it usually opts to drag out canon material, which I suppose might be just as bad or even worse depending on your perspective. This might be one of those rare cases where filler arcs would actually be preferable as a means to avoid catching up to the manga, since many fans find OP's anime-original episodes to be surprisingly decent overall.
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SaiyamanMS



Joined: 05 Oct 2006
Posts: 302
PostPosted: Fri May 06, 2016 5:30 pm Reply with quote
Wingbeats wrote:
Which makes me really, really appreciate shows that just stop and wait for more manga material, like Natsume's Book of Friends or Blue Exorcist.

Almost the entire second half of the Blue Exorcist anime was filler.

Personally, I like having the option having filler episodes if I want them. But I also wouldn't object to having an alternate fillerless Dragon Ball Kai-like cut. For shows like Naruto, it really is more or less simple enough to skip the filler arcs and only watch the canon material. One Piece on the other hand, I dropped due to atrociously slow pacing and have been manga only for a while now.

And the filler arcs at the end of the Rurouni Kenshin anime became worse and worse as they continued. (I still want the show to come back to animate the Jinchuu arc though!)
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